Preview Brisbane Lions v Geelong Round 6 (Saturday 20 April 7:30PM @ Gabba)

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rye said:
Brisbane Lions v Geelong
Gabba
7:30PM 20 April 2024



Brisbane Lions 2024 theme as reported by Sam McClure​


With a tumultuous start to the season including a trip to America that was only relevant 6 months after it happened, Brisbane finally find themselves hitting a bit of form in the last fortnight. With one of the most impressive performances of the Fagan era in a complete dominance of premiership fancy Melbourne on their home deck, Brisbane find themselves in a position to truly get their flag aspirations back on track. Unfortunately for them, they find themselves up against one of the form teams of the competition.

If there was ever a thing as a perennial contender in the AFL landscape, it would be Geelong. Despite the fact their fans seem to think everyone continually writes them off, anyone who has been paying attention for the last two decades know how the well-oiled Geelong engine keeps chugging along. Although it could be argued they have not faced meaningful opposition thus far, Geelong travel up to Brisbane being undefeated so far in season 2024. Seeking to bounce back from an underwhelming title defence last year, Geelong look close to being back to their best and with a healthy list pose a serious challenge to any opposition.

In a prime time AFL fixture, two premiership aspirants find themselves playing in what is in my unbiased opinion the match of the round.


Recent History

Most Brisbane fans would opine that we have been robbed in our last couple of visits to Kardinia Park. It is fortunate the AFL have decided we are now too big of a club to be sent to G Town and have scheduled our game at the Gabba. Geelong have traditionally traveled well to the Gabba, with the last encounter between these two teams at the venue being decided by 11 points.

Cal Ah Chee put in a terrific shift in Brisbane’s game against Geelong last year and cemented his spot in the best 22 for the remainder of that season. The win was unfortunately overshadowed by Will Ashcroft’s ACL injury. Fingers crossed Will’s rehab continues to progress positively.


Teams

Brisbane

It would be a slight understatement to say Brisbane currently have more injuries than they have grown accustomed to in recent times. Adding to the injuries woes is Zac Bailey expected to miss at least the next month with an ankle injury. Replacing Bailey is most likely to be achieved through magnet shuffling, with Cal Ah Chee to potentially spend more time forward. Brisbane welcome Conor McKenna back from injury, and I expect Bailey’s spot in the side to just be taken by McKenna. I would also give Tunstill a run at VFL level and make someone else a sub, with Dev Robertson being the most likely candidate.

Some posters have suggested moving Answerth to be sub. I think his form has been too good to be dropped, but also Brisbane’s next two games are against teams with incredibly potent small forwards. Answerth’s defensive capabilities will be very useful in shutting down Geelong’s small forwards, with the capacity to stifle link man Gryan Miers being very enticing. I would look at playing McKenna or Wilmot off a wing and rolling back more to allow for this.

In: McKenna, Robertson (Sub)
Out: Bailey, Tunstill (Sub)

Geelong

Geelong decided to treat their veterans conservatively in a week where they had a free win and kept Patrick Dangerfield, Jake Kolodjasnij and Tom Hawkins out of the side. Expect all three to return this week. Some of Geelong’s younger players likely make way for their premiership winning veterans. The only best 22 player Geelong will not have available for selection this week is Cam Guthrie who remains sidelined with a quad injury.

In: Dangerfield, Hawkins, Kolodjasnij
Out: Clark, Neale, O’Sullivan


Key Match ups

Jack Payne v Tom Hawkins

After being dropped due to a dismal game manning Charlie Curnow in round 0, Jack Payne has found his way back into a Brisbane lineup where he has cemented a position in the best 22 in the last 12 months. Although he has managed to build some form by playing on Nick Larkey and Ben Brown, Payne finds himself with a far more difficult assignment this round in Tom Hawkins. Perennially one of the games most imposing key forwards, Hawkins combination of strength and forward nous to find pockets of space to lead into make him a truly difficult opponent for any defender. It will be a team effort to quell Hawkins’ influence, with pressure from upfield crucial to limiting his opportunities. But on the other side of the ledger, Payne simply must maintain his competitiveness that he has displayed in the last two weeks. If Payne’s form reverts to that he displayed when manning Charlie Curnow in round 0, Hawkins could very well fill his boots with a significant haul of goals.

Darcy Gardiner v Tom Stewart

Finding himself in a new role in season 2024, Darcy Gardiner finds himself making a late career shift to the Key Forward post. Results from this change have been somewhat underwhelming to begin the year from a goals perspective, but the success of this move may be measured more in how Gardiner allows Brisbane to maintain their preferred structure of 3 tall forwards. Gardiner has taken a role in attempting to stifle the influence of the oppositions best interceptor and will likely find himself tasked with stopping arguably the AFL’s best in this role in Tom Stewart. Stewart is Geelong’s most important structural piece, being both their best defender as well as one of their most reliable options for rebounding. Stifling his influence both at cutting off Brisbane’s ball movement as well as his work in Geelong’s transition would go a long way to Brisbane winning. Gardiner’s game should be judged on his effectiveness in neutering Stewart’s impact more than anything else if given the assignment. He would hope to have a better effect than he did on Jake Lever, who frequently peeled off without worry to intercept Brisbane’s kicks inside forward 50.


Random Thoughts
​
Cam Rayner had his official ‘break out game’ according to some esteemed pundits against the Demons last Thursday. With some brilliant work around stoppages and a perfect 10 in the coaches’ votes, a certain Melbourne fan has been left trying to pick the pieces of his Bigfooty career back up on the main board. Our learned friend does make a somewhat valid point in that Rayner has struggled to back performances like this up in the past. Brisbane’s prospects this season depend a lot on elevation from the 21-25 year old cohort which includes Rayner, and seeing him perform strongly in the midfield against Geelong would go a long way to show that he has truly arrived as a consistent star rather than being the tease he has been to this point in his career.

Geelong’s standout attribute as a team is their capacity to transition from their defensive half to their forward line with great speed and composure. This well drilled aspect to their game generally helps to cover for their average midfield and is what lead them to a premiership in 2022. Brisbane for their part have put much emphasis on team defence since the 2022 season, and Geelong is arguably the greatest test to show how far the Lions have come in this regard. If Brisbane’s team defence looks like it did against Melbourne, it will go a long way to preventing the quick transition the likes of Stengle, Miers and Cameron thrive off.

Much has been said about Oscar McInerney’s slow start to 2024. He won’t find many opponents easier to matchup on this year from a pure ruck contest standpoint than Rhys Stanley. Hopefully an easier opponent is what is needed to kick the Big O into gear, as Brisbane look far more dangerous when he is connecting well the midfield and getting into dangerous spots around the ground. The qualifying and preliminary final last year are two great games to showcase what an in form McInerney provides to this Brisbane side.


Prediction

Geelong’s undefeated run comes to an end at the Gabbatoir. David King questions what they stand for and where they are at on First Crack. Brisbane are back baby.

Brisbane by 18
Click to expand...

Great preview!

Having said that, given Gardiner has a height advantage on Stewart, I wonder if his role as a defensive forward might be wasted on Stewart. This could possibly be a role for Ah Chee instead.

I would suggest that after Stanley takes the centre bounce, Blicavs will take the ruck contests around the ground, and Stanley will shift to defence as a spare man. He will look to play on someone (Gardiner presumably if your prediction comes to pass) in an attempt to free up Stewart.

Because of Blicavs' versatility this is very difficult to overcome. This is why I would start Ah Chee on Stewart, and if Stanley wants to come and man up Ah Chee, well this becomes a mismatch we can exploit.. Obviously we can't kick the ball on Ah Chee's head. However, we will have to get Ah Chee on the move and use him at every opportunity to keep Stanley accountable. If it means Geelong have to revert back to having Stewart play on Ah Chee, well that is a big win for us.

In the meantime, if Stanley does come down and man up on Ah Chee in an attempt to free up Stewart, THAT'S when I'm sending Gardiner to Stewart. It's a win-win: we get the mobility and ball use of Ah Chee on a slower opponent, ideally dragging him out of position, while we get Gardiner making life miserable for Stewart.

I would point out that Gardiner and Lever very rarely (if at all) matched up last Thursday night, which surprised me, but as it turned out our whole-ground performance was sufficient to neuter Lever's aerial influence.

This does however still leave Geelong with a spare man in defence, just not Tom Stewart. This means we will still need to be discerning with our ball movement. I would expect us to try and reprise some more of what we saw against Melbourne: patience, short chip passes either laterally or forward to break up Geelong's zone. This has the potential to work against Geelong, who have so far played 2 games at Kardinia Park and 2 games at Adelaide Oval, both narrow grounds where it is harder to utilise width to go around a zone defence.

The one game they played on the MCG was against Hawthorn, who challenged them noticeably at stages during that game, and perhaps expected score was a more accurate reflection of that game:



From what I understand tho (and I haven't been to any Geelong games so it's hard to verify) Geelong this season are playing with what soccer people will call a "high press". Their backs are really pushing up very high to try and lock the ball in their front half. The idea behind this is that they are more likely to be able to force turnovers via more numbers around the ball, and those turnovers will be closer to their goal.

But the flipside (and we have seen this already multiple times this season) is it does leave them exposed to a fast counter attack. If we can get through their high press we could quite feasibly have a one on one forward of centre, or potentially even an outnumber. So while I think we will adopt a patient approach for the most part, as we did against Melbourne, like any good bowler, the change of pace is an important part of the arsenal and one we will do well to exploit when the opportunity arises.

Either way I'm hoping we can see a more cohesive approach to our ball movement this Saturday compared to what we saw last Thursday, which, while promising, I still felt was a little haphazard at times.

Obviously our back line will have their hands full, so I think we will need a performance from our midfield similar to what we saw against Melbourne. The Jeremy Cameron matchup is a huge one, and I don't know if we have a good match up for him. Who played on him last year?
 
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Anyone else find the uproar on the Charlie Cameron decision sickening. Almost as bad the whinging that goes on regarding father sons and academy players.

It’s the reason I stay away from most footy programs these days. Double standards everywhere.

Hoping Charlie kicks a bag on Saturday.
 
If we don't have a well-developed plan for Stewart I will be very disappointed. He is a key to their game. I'd run Cameron off him. Shift the bugger around.

Watching live at the G last week I was impressed by Starc's off the ball harassment of Melbs high forwards. They hated it. Keep it up I say. Might we have a developing M. Pike 2?

Perhaps counter-intuitively I think we might have the game to match Geelong. Put it this way- I hope to see Scott finally do his nut.

Sent from my SM-N920I using Tapatalk
 
RoyBoy17 said:
Anyone else find the uproar on the Charlie Cameron decision sickening. Almost as bad the whinging that goes on regarding father sons and academy players.

It’s the reason I stay away from most footy programs these days. Double standards everywhere.

Hoping Charlie kicks a bag on Saturday.
Click to expand...
I actually tend to agree with much of what has been said about the incident. Watching live at the ground (and shortly afterwards on the big screen) I immediately thought it warranted suspension and probably multiple weeks. I thought the eventual 1 was lucky. Which says even less about the Vlastuin and Dawson fines, both of which were arguably even more dangerous tackles.

So clearly there's the obvious problem of consistency.

But the big concern for me about this is the "good bloke rebate". Yes it has benefitted us here. But fast forward to a late season 8 point game or a knockout final, we come up against a big Victorian club, you can easily see this being used to our disadvantage. There's really only a couple of Brisbane players (maybe only 1) who has a public profile of note in this city. Now compare that to how many Collingwood or Carlton players have a public profile of note and how they would be able to leverage that to get a "good bloke rebate".

The AFL is entering very dangerous territory here and it doesn't require too much imagination to see how it might cost us in a big game later in the year.
 
Grasshopper17 said:
Great preview!

Having said that, given Gardiner has a height advantage on Stewart, I wonder if his role as a defensive forward might be wasted on Stewart. This could possibly be a role for Ah Chee instead.

I would suggest that after Stanley takes the centre bounce, Blicavs will take the ruck contests around the ground, and Stanley will shift to defence as a spare man. He will look to play on someone (Gardiner presumably if your prediction comes to pass) in an attempt to free up Stewart.

Because of Blicavs' versatility this is very difficult to overcome. This is why I would start Ah Chee on Stewart, and if Stanley wants to come and man up Ah Chee, well this becomes a mismatch we can exploit.. Obviously we can't kick the ball on Ah Chee's head. However, we will have to get Ah Chee on the move and use him at every opportunity to keep Stanley accountable. If it means Geelong have to revert back to having Stewart play on Ah Chee, well that is a big win for us.

In the meantime, if Stanley does come down and man up on Ah Chee in an attempt to free up Stewart, THAT'S when I'm sending Gardiner to Stewart. It's a win-win: we get the mobility and ball use of Ah Chee on a slower opponent, ideally dragging him out of position, while we get Gardiner making life miserable for Stewart.

I would point out that Gardiner and Lever very rarely (if at all) matched up last Thursday night, which surprised me, but as it turned out our whole-ground performance was sufficient to neuter Lever's aerial influence.

This does however still leave Geelong with a spare man in defence, just not Tom Stewart. This means we will still need to be discerning with our ball movement. I would expect us to try and reprise some more of what we saw against Melbourne: patience, short chip passes either laterally or forward to break up Geelong's zone. This has the potential to work against Geelong, who have so far played 2 games at Kardinia Park and 2 games at Adelaide Oval, both narrow grounds where it is harder to utilise width to go around a zone defence.

The one game they played on the MCG was against Hawthorn, who challenged them noticeably at stages during that game, and perhaps expected score was a more accurate reflection of that game:



From what I understand tho (and I haven't been to any Geelong games so it's hard to verify) Geelong this season are playing with what soccer people will call a "high press". Their backs are really pushing up very high to try and lock the ball in their front half. The idea behind this is that they are more likely to be able to force turnovers via more numbers around the ball, and those turnovers will be closer to their goal.

But the flipside (and we have seen this already multiple times this season) is it does leave them exposed to a fast counter attack. If we can get through their high press we could quite feasibly have a one on one forward of centre, or potentially even an outnumber. So while I think we will adopt a patient approach for the most part, as we did against Melbourne, like any good bowler, the change of pace is an important part of the arsenal and one we will do well to exploit when the opportunity arises.

Either way I'm hoping we can see a more cohesive approach to our ball movement this Saturday compared to what we saw last Thursday, which, while promising, I still felt was a little haphazard at times.

Obviously our back line will have their hands full, so I think we will need a performance from our midfield similar to what we saw against Melbourne. The Jeremy Cameron matchup is a huge one, and I don't know if we have a good match up for him. Who played on him last year?
Click to expand...

Daniel Hoyne from Champion data was talking about wings and that the lions and the cats are the two clubs changing the way wings are used. In Geelong’s case they use one wing as a pure defensive wing usually someone like Toohey and an attacking wing on the other side with Cameron moving in and out of that role. The full discussion is in the coaching thread.
 
I’m sure we will have more of a plan than Matthew Nicks did. Letting Stewart take record intercepts and then manned him up with 3min to go in the match was an embarrassment.
 
Grasshopper17 said:
I actually tend to agree with much of what has been said about the incident. Watching live at the ground (and shortly afterwards on the big screen) I immediately thought it warranted suspension and probably multiple weeks. I thought the eventual 1 was lucky. Which says even less about the Vlastuin and Dawson fines, both of which were arguably even more dangerous tackles.

So clearly there's the obvious problem of consistency.

But the big concern for me about this is the "good bloke rebate". Yes it has benefitted us here. But fast forward to a late season 8 point game or a knockout final, we come up against a big Victorian club, you can easily see this being used to our disadvantage. There's really only a couple of Brisbane players (maybe only 1) who has a public profile of note in this city. Now compare that to how many Collingwood or Carlton players have a public profile of note and how they would be able to leverage that to get a "good bloke rebate".

The AFL is entering very dangerous territory here and it doesn't require too much imagination to see how it might cost us in a big game later in the year.
Click to expand...
True, definitely agree that ‘the good bloke’ card shouldn’t be a factor. opens up a can of worms.

But guys like Whateley go hard at this instance and then when Pendlebury gets off for practically a punch off the ball we don’t hear a peep out of him. The character card is fine in that regard.

I genuinely didn’t think Cameron would get suspended based on other similar cases we’ve seen. Lever also threw his head back and made it look way worse than what it was.
 
KissKiss said:
Andrews rarely gets a break. Often plays 100% TOG. Actually think he is one of the least rested players in the comp over the last 5 or 6 years. Key forwards and backs get the least bench time by a long way
Click to expand...
I fully understand that some players hardly get a break.
But they do get a break and it all adds up.
Bear in mind my reply was to Xlixuh in regard to Zorko just relieving McKenna and also a forward player from the bench.

Bench time from the Demons game (for the year) for KPP and ruck.
Andrews 4% (4.4% Year)
Payne 7% (7.5%)
Daniher 12% (7.2%)
Oscar 12% (17.4%)
Hippy 20% (18.2%)
Gardiner 22% (33% injured R 1)
 

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G'day Lions fans, I'm a bit of a stat head and just thought I'd drop this here for you all.

In the past 17 years the top 5 teams for Inside 50 differential per game have been;

1. 2012 Hawks +14.1 per game (Made the GF)
2. 2011 Cats +14.0 per game (Won Flag)
3. 2008 Cats +13.7 per game (Made the GF)
4. 2022 Cats +12.8 per game (Won Flag)
5. 2010 Pies +12.5 per game (Won Flag)

2024 Lions +16.4 per game! Pretty incredible given they have lost three games and played three contenders in Carlton, Melbourne and Collingwood.

Best of luck against the Cats...
 
AFLinsight2023 said:
G'day Lions fans, I'm a bit of a stat head and just thought I'd drop this here for you all.

In the past 17 years the top 5 teams for Inside 50 differential per game have been;

1. 2012 Hawks +14.1 per game (Made the GF)
2. 2011 Cats +14.0 per game (Won Flag)
3. 2008 Cats +13.7 per game (Made the GF)
4. 2022 Cats +12.8 per game (Won Flag)
5. 2010 Pies +12.5 per game (Won Flag)

2024 Lions +16.4 per game! Pretty incredible given they have lost three games and played three contenders in Carlton, Melbourne and Collingwood.

Best of luck against the Cats...
Click to expand...
That's it, I am booking my flights to and accommodation in Melbourne for the last weekend in September.

BTW, welcome to Big Footy, elite first post. 👏
 
AFLinsight2023 said:
G'day Lions fans, I'm a bit of a stat head and just thought I'd drop this here for you all.

In the past 17 years the top 5 teams for Inside 50 differential per game have been;

1. 2012 Hawks +14.1 per game (Made the GF)
2. 2011 Cats +14.0 per game (Won Flag)
3. 2008 Cats +13.7 per game (Made the GF)
4. 2022 Cats +12.8 per game (Won Flag)
5. 2010 Pies +12.5 per game (Won Flag)

2024 Lions +16.4 per game! Pretty incredible given they have lost three games and played three contenders in Carlton, Melbourne and Collingwood.

Best of luck against the Cats...
Click to expand...
This is a great stat. Thanks for sharing.

Really speaks to my ongoing concerns with our ball movement, particularly our entries inside 50. One thing I would like to see us improve is where we are forced to bomb long, do so to get inside 25, rather than putting it on blokes' heads between 25 and 50 out which happened a lot on Thursday night. We need to be able to get closer to goal via uncontested possessions (hand or foot) before pulling the trigger on those long kicks.

Yes, I'm nitpicking from that game because we scrapped hard and were well set up behind the ball, but at 2-3 and average score of just 84, we are hardly getting bang for buck from our inside 50s.
 
Grasshopper17 said:
I actually tend to agree with much of what has been said about the incident. Watching live at the ground (and shortly afterwards on the big screen) I immediately thought it warranted suspension and probably multiple weeks. I thought the eventual 1 was lucky. Which says even less about the Vlastuin and Dawson fines, both of which were arguably even more dangerous tackles.

So clearly there's the obvious problem of consistency.

But the big concern for me about this is the "good bloke rebate". Yes it has benefitted us here. But fast forward to a late season 8 point game or a knockout final, we come up against a big Victorian club, you can easily see this being used to our disadvantage. There's really only a couple of Brisbane players (maybe only 1) who has a public profile of note in this city. Now compare that to how many Collingwood or Carlton players have a public profile of note and how they would be able to leverage that to get a "good bloke rebate".

The AFL is entering very dangerous territory here and it doesn't require too much imagination to see how it might cost us in a big game later in the year.
Click to expand...

I think like the ‘loopholes’ that were changed by the Maynard and Cripps cases, the AFL will also be making changes after this case as well.
 
buttermuffs said:
I think like the ‘loopholes’ that were changed by the Maynard and Cripps cases, the AFL will also be making changes after this case as well.
Click to expand...
Personally I think that it was an admission by the AFL that they have got some similar cases wrong so far this year.
But things are likely to change, I agree.
 
Grasshopper17 said:
This is a great stat. Thanks for sharing.

Really speaks to my ongoing concerns with our ball movement, particularly our entries inside 50. One thing I would like to see us improve is where we are forced to bomb long, do so to get inside 25, rather than putting it on blokes' heads between 25 and 50 out which happened a lot on Thursday night. We need to be able to get closer to goal via uncontested possessions (hand or foot) before pulling the trigger on those long kicks.

Yes, I'm nitpicking from that game because we scrapped hard and were well set up behind the ball, but at 2-3 and average score of just 84, we are hardly getting bang for buck from our inside 50s.
Click to expand...

Fix it up though and try and stop us 😎
 
Grasshopper17 said:
This is a great stat. Thanks for sharing.

Really speaks to my ongoing concerns with our ball movement, particularly our entries inside 50. One thing I would like to see us improve is where we are forced to bomb long, do so to get inside 25, rather than putting it on blokes' heads between 25 and 50 out which happened a lot on Thursday night. We need to be able to get closer to goal via uncontested possessions (hand or foot) before pulling the trigger on those long kicks.

Yes, I'm nitpicking from that game because we scrapped hard and were well set up behind the ball, but at 2-3 and average score of just 84, we are hardly getting bang for buck from our inside 50s.
Click to expand...
The last 2 weeks we have been much better and although still bombing a bit, what we are doing much better is getting bodies to the fall of the ball and making it much harder for teams to run it out.
 
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